


Can't Go Anywhere

by LadyShadowphyre



Series: Anywhere [1]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers (2012), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: #Globetrotter Loki, Community: avengerkink, Crap I Just Created A New Universe, Gen, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki as a tourist, Semi-Blatant Self-Insertion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kathy Harris was not particularly internet-addicted, so she didn't realize when she was seated next to a man with sad green eyes that the world knew him has #Globetrotter. Eh, Kathy's never claimed to be normal.</p><p>Written for the prompt on Avengerkink asking for tourist!Loki popping up around the world. Go <a href="http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/6021.html?thread=10025605#t10025605">here</a> for more #Globetrotter fills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Charlottesville, Virginia

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Tourist!Loki Prompt Fills](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/14523) by Multiple. 



> Much as I might like to obfuscate, name changes do not make this anything less than the fairly blatant self-insertion that it is. Mea culpa.

**K** ATHY WOULD BE THE FIRST TO ADMIT THAT, barring email and instant messenger (and a perhaps unhealthy level of interest in fan fiction), she really wasn't much of an internet junkie. She had a livejournal that she always forgot to update, which she used as her primary excuse not to get Facebook or a tumblr. She point blank refused to get a Twitter account.  
  
 _"I'm leashed by my damned phone already, I don't need another excuse to get no sleep,"_ she'd argued to her best friend on one of their rare chances out having tea together. Sonya had laughed in her face, and Kathy had vowed she'd get Twitter over her hen-pecked dead body.  
  
Later, she would laugh. Later, she would look back on this moment as being the irony it was.  
  
Later was not now, because all she felt as the flurry of cameras came up every time some group passed the outdoor seating of _Bashir Taverna_ all she could feel was annoyance, particularly since the flash of the less discreet cameras kept catching the attention of her two-year-old daughter Meredith.  
  
Honestly, she was starting to hate the Charlottesville Photography Festival.  
  
"Come on, Meredith, finish your lunch," Kathy coaxed. "Just ignore the rude people with cameras who think it's okay to bother other people when they're eating."  
  
"My apologies," an unusually cultured British-sounding voice said from one table over. Kathy turned to catch sight of a dark haired man with soulful green eyes and a rueful smile and, oh, hell, if she wasn't married...! "I seem to have developed a bit of a following."  
  
"Not your fault," Kathy said, shaking her head. "Following, famous, or whatever, it's all on them for not understanding the concept of _personal privacy_!" she added a little louder as she shot a glare at a gaggle of tourists who'd just raised their cameras. Abashed, the cameras lowered and the tourists scuttled back a safe distance, looking at her like she might bite them.  
  
She resisted the urge to bare her teeth and see if they jumped.  
  
"You are local, I gather?" the man asked, looking amused, though whether it was by the reactions of the tourists or by Kathy herself was a toss-up. Okay, chatty handsome stranger with sad eyes, she could handle that.  
  
"Barely, but yes," she said, tapping the (currently closed) textbook beside her. It wasn't actually a UVA textbook - even with a scholarship that school was out of her price range - but it was useful in directing the conversation away from things she didn't care to discuss. From the look he gave her, she got the feeling he saw through her redirection, but was willing to allow it.  
  
"Then you will know the best location for the purchase of books in this town?" the man asked raising a distinctly challenging eyebrow. Kathy pursed her lips.  
  
"Depends on what you want," she said. The curiosity was back, so she expanded, "If you want newer, mainstream books, that's the Barnes  & Noble down by Barracks Road. The kind of books you'll find here in the Mall are mostly second-hand."  
  
"Second-hand is more to my taste," the man said, leaning in slightly.  
  
"Well, Blue Whale has a 'reading room' vibe to it, but it's selection is kind of small," Kathy started, holding up one hand, finger extended. Lifting another finger, she added, "Daedelus is three floors of twists and turns jam-packed with books of all types." She glanced at the tourists again, then leaned in and lowered her voice. "Around the corner and down four blocks to the left is a little shop with antique books. Way out of a student's price range, but the leather-bound musty book smell is worth the disappointment of leaving empty handed."

"I will keep that in mind," the man said. Kathy noticed that while his lips smiled, his eyes remained sad. Then those eyes moved to her daughter, and Kathy caught a look of pain and longing so sharp it made her gut twist to see it. "...You have a beautiful daughter."  
  
"Thank you," Kathy started, but Meredith chose that moment to tune into the adults' conversation and look up with a stern toddler frown.  
  
"No, I'm too cute!" she said firmly, waving her fork for emphasis. Kathy fought a grin, shaking her head, but the man surprised her.  
  
"Of course you are," he said seriously, not at all condescending. "How old are you, little one?"  
  
"I'm almos' three!" Meredith proclaimed brightly, holding up four fingers. Without a word, Kathy reached out and adjusted the position of her daughter's hand until she had three fingers lifted. Meredith giggled, and the man smiled, small and reluctant, but there. _Score one for weaponized cuteness,_ Kathy thought with a purely internal smirk.  
  
Her enjoyment was short-lived as her phone went off with the alarm she'd set. "Ah, da--ang it," Kathy grumbled, barely remembering to cut off her curse in front of her daughter. To the man - she still didn't know his name, that was weird for her - she said, "I'm sorry, we've got to get going."  
  
"Ah, of course," he said, drawing back. "I apologize for keeping you--"  
  
"Acht!" Kathy said, smiling faintly. " _I_ am sorry we have to run off and abandon you to the vultures." She cast a glance at the slowing growing group of tourists across the street and he followed her glance, smirking faintly.  
  
"I shall muddle through," he said gravely. "It was a pleasure to speak with you and your daughter."  
  
"Pleasure's ours," Kathy said, for once actually meaning the polite rejoinder. Gathering Meredith's things and her own, she lifted her daughter out of her highchair and stood. "Happy hunting!" she added as she carried Meredith inside to pay her check. Five minutes later, exiting the restaurant, the group of tourists was no bigger than the usual light flow of cameras and the sad-eyed man was gone.  
  
Two hours later, staring at a text from Sonya reading, _"OMG, ur trending on twitter!"_ Kathy wondered why this was her life.


	2. Part Two: Atlanta, Georgia

**H** AVING BEEN THOROUGHLY BRIEFED BY SONYA OVER HEAVILY SPIKED TEA, Kathy was now much more aware than she really wanted to be about the green-eyed man the internet referred to as #Globetrotter. Moreover, she was somewhat annoyed by the rampant speculation being tossed around about _her_ and her _daughter_.  
  
 _"It's like they think because he spoke to me, we're automatically involved or something!"_ she'd complained over Skype to her husband. Danny's being in Afghanistan bothered her less than his having been in Iraq had, but since Stark's disappearance out there it was still a bit unnerving.  
  
 _"Welcome to the other side of the fence,"_ he'd joked at her, laughing when she flipped him off sourly. _"Be honest. You want to adopt him and take him home and feed him, don't you."_  
  
 _"No!"_ Kathy had snapped, then flushed. _"...Maybe. But it's not going to happen. Strangers pass in the night all the time. We'll probably never meet him again."_  
  
Seated on the large stone steps surrounding the jumping fountains at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta and watching her daughter play in the fountain with one eye while the other eye focused on an all too familiar slender form in long coat and green and gold scarf, Kathy wondered how this was her life. It would just figure that as she was trying to decide whether to pretend she hadn't seen him or start sniping people with camera phones, he looked over and saw her.  
  
"Did I not meet you in Charlottesville?" he asked, stepping over hesitantly to her spot on the steps. Checking to make sure Meredith was okay splashing with her new friends, Kathy let her body language relax and open in welcome without letting her hands pause.  
  
"You did," she said, inclining her head slightly at the stone near her in invitation. "Your following seems to have placed you in Dublin as of yesterday." Sonya had taken to updating her, especially if it was someplace she knew Kathy had been.  
  
"I was intrigued by the promise of a 'literary pub crawl'," the man said with a slight smile. Kathy grinned.  
  
"Oh, you went on that?" she said. "Did the guides open with a snippet of 'Waiting for Godot'?"  
  
"They did," he said, expressing mild surprise. "You've experienced it?"  
  
"Mmhm," Kathy nodded, flicking a glance at the fountains to check on Meredith, then down at her hands to check the yarnover-slip-slip-knit. "My husband and I spent our honeymoon on a whirlwind tour of Europe, visiting family and friends."  
  
"I see," the man said, sounding interested. "Perhaps you might have further recommendations for me?"  
  
"Have you been to Prague?" Kathy asked. When he shook his head, she said, "Go there. The whole Czech Republic is gorgeous country, and the history is engaging even for us non history majors, especially Prague Castle."  
  
"Prague," the man repeated, nodding. "Anywhere else?"  
  
"Mm, Belgium is nice, particularly if you like chocolate," Kathy mused, studying him covertly even as she checked on Meredith. Her daughter appeared to be playing a game of catch with two other children. Turning her work, she added, "Though since you're here, you might want to check out the Fox Theatre or the High Museum of Art."  
  
"So you are local here as well?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow. Kathy smirked.  
  
"I learned a long time ago that I can't go anywhere without being mistaken for a local," she said flippantly. From the smirk she received in return, he'd caught her complete lack of answer.

"Mommy!" Meredith called, running over. Kathy capped her needles quickly and tucked the work away into her bag just in time to catch her wet and giggling toddler with both hands and an answering smile.  
  
"Having fun, sweetie?" she asked, shifting back to set Meredith down feet first on the stone step and grabbing up a towel one-handed.  
  
"Uh-huh!" Meredith said, nodding. "But Mommy, now I'm hungry!"  
  
"That's because it's lunch time," Kathy teased, rubbing the towel over her daughter's hair. Glancing at the man beside her, she asked, "I don't suppose you'd care to join us?" The man appeared taken aback by the invitation.  
  
"Very trusting of you," he said, studying her curiously. "I could be a horribly dangerous monster."  
  
"Most monsters don't seem to realize they're monsters," Kathy said wryly. "But no, you aren't."  
  
"So sure of that, are you?" he murmured, those sad green eyes intent on hers. Kathy felt a flicker of something sharp and cold flash up her spine and across her mind, but she met his gaze squarely.  
  
"Would you ever harm a child?" she asked levelly, and caught the flash of pain and horror in his eyes before his expression went blank.  
  
"Never intentionally," he said, subdued. Impulsively, Kathy reached out and rested a hand on his arm, stilling when he stiffened at the touch, but not moving her hand.  
  
"Then I have no fear of you," she said softly, her other arm holding Meredith gently against her. "Meredith, do you remember this man?"  
  
"Uh-huh!" Meredith said, smiling and giggling shyly. "Hi, mister..."  
  
"Hello, little one," the man said, his smile weak, but there. Glancing up at Kathy with an unreadable look, he added, "Perhaps another time... if we meet again."  
  
"It's a small world, after all..." Kathy intoned, chuckling when he blinked at her in confusion. "Check out Walt Disney World in Florida, or Disneyland out in California. Everyone should go there at least once."  
  
"I will take that under advisement," he said solemnly. "Thank you, and thank you for your other recommendations."  
  
"Anytime," Kathy said, smiling and lowering her hand to start drying Meredith off in earnest. "For future reference if we do run into each other again, I'm Kathy."  
  
"Kathy," he repeated, nodding and standing. "Always a pleasure, milady."  
  
"You honor us to say so, kind sir," Kathy returned, matching his tone and keeping her amusement to herself. Meredith chose that moment to squirm and Kathy refocused on her daughter, drying her off while keeping her from taking a header down the stone steps. When she looked around again, he was gone, and there were half a dozen people with camera phones feverishly texting.  
  
 _Fucking perfect,_ she grumbled internally, and stood to get herself and Meredith to the nearest MARTA station. Once was bad enough, but twice? Sonya would never let her hear the end of this....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knit. I am a very active and impressive knitter, who actually baffles people by knitting steadily without looking at said knitting _while walking through a tour of Prague Castle_. Sit or stand next to me, and I will carry on a conversation while meeting your eyes and only occasionally looking down to count stitches. Yes, this is the source of my enjoyment of knitting!Avengers fics.


	3. Part Three: Washington, District of Columbia

**L** IVING IN THE MIDDLE OF VIRGINIA, while inconvenient to her ability to take Meredith to visit her grandparents of either side, did have some usefulness. It might take a three and a half hour drive to get there, but it was always worth it to see Meredith light up as they walked into the atrium of the Museum of Natural History off the National Mall. Within moments, she was being pulled off towards the dinosaur hall and the huge skeletons of triceratops and parasaurolophus. Kathy followed along fondly, occasionally taking videos with her Flip camera to send to Danny, but mostly enjoying her daughter's ever-renewing enthusiasm for the long-dead giant reptiles of the past.  
  
It was in the hall beyond the dinosaurs, where the history of mammals and human evolution began, that Meredith spotted their "friend" the Globetrotter.  
  
"You know," Kathy remarked as she allowed her daughter to pull her over to the startled man, smiling. "They say once is accident and twice is coincidence."  
  
"Dare I ask what three times is considered?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow. Kathy let her smile turn into a smirk.  
  
"A conspiracy," she joked. "Catch!"  
  
With that for a warning, she released Meredith's hand and let the little girl launch herself at the still-nameless man. The look he gave her was equal parts alarmed and awed, but catch her he did, lifting her up into the air to Meredith's delighted laughter. Kathy watched with a fond smile, not even protesting when he swung Meredith up to sit on his shoulders, simply falling into step with them.  
  
Together, the trio moved through the halls and studied the displays, the man going wherever Meredith urged him and Kathy elaborating on the placards when she could, mostly repeating information she'd told Meredith several times before. The man never interrupted, and asked questions that sometimes Kathy could answer and sometimes she could point him towards a book title or particular author to answer it later. When they passed by the cafe in the back, despite the way her inner thrifty Scot cringed at the prices, Kathy nudged him into the line and bought them all a light lunch. It was the longest they'd actually spent in each other's presence, and watching him with her daughter reaffirmed two things in Kathy's mind: the first that this man was a good soul, no matter what he might think of himself, and the second that he'd clearly been badly hurt in the past.  
  
"So, my husband thinks I want to adopt you," she commented idly as they studied the huge side by side mammoth and mastadon skeletons and pretended the teenagers around the corner weren't actually taking pictures of _them_. She felt him stiffen as the air around them grew noticeably cooler.  
  
"Is that so?" he murmured, tone bland. Kathy shrugged one shoulder, deliberately keeping her posture calm and relaxed.  
  
"He's dubbed me the patron goddess of Mama Bears," she said lightly. "Hyperactive protective instinct."  
  
"And yet you trust _me_ ," the man said disbelievingly. Kathy glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. The man's usually neatly-combed back hair was in thorough disarray from Meredith's pulling, and his iconic and expensive-looking scarf was being thoroughly rumpled from her sitting on his shoulders once more.  
  
"...I have pretty good instincts," she said with a faint smile. He was silent for a moment, studying her.  
  
"I've killed people," he said after a moment, eyes sharp and haunted.  
  
"So has my husband," Kathy said calmly. "So has any soldier who sees combat."  
  
"Are you not taught to revile those who take the lives of others?" the man pressed, staring at her so intently Kathy wondered if he might actually be staring into her soul.  
  
"Please," she drawled, raising an eyebrow. "Look around. Humans have been killing each other since before we evolved enough to be considered sentient, and no matter how self-important some people like to think they are, we're still doing it. Death is death, no matter if it's 'sanctioned' or not, and we all go to Her in the end. Some journeys are just shorter than others."

"...You are a strange little mortal," the man said softly, staring at her. Kathy smiled faintly, her green eyes narrowed above her upturned lips.  
  
"Never claimed I was normal, now, did I?" she said. She'd surprised him again, for he chuckled and turned back to looking at the mammoth at Meredith's insistent pull and tilted his head to listen to her ramble about "Manny and Ellie and Peaches" with studious attention. Kathy smiled at them both and hit "Ignore" to the unknown number on her cell phone.  
  
They parted ways at the great elephant in the atrium, the man needing to leave for now while Kathy had promised to take Meredith into the Ocean Hall again. This time, he kissed her hand, and she bobbed a curtsy in return that probably looked odd from a woman wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt over a tank top and carrying a toddler. Meredith reached out to him, and he submitted to her hug, and then disappeared out the doors of the museum. Shaking her head in amusement, Kathy turned and headed for the Ocean Hall so they could see the giant squid for the third time.  
  
It was getting late by the time they emerged from the museum, needing to get back to the metro station where they'd left the car. Walking down the steps, Kathy stepped sideways to avoid running into a man in a suit who was walking up the steps. Instead of walking past her, the man stepped neatly into her path to intercept her, forcing Kathy to stop.  
  
"Mrs Harris?" the man said, extending a hand with a card. Kathy could make out the crest of a spread-winged bird inside a circle and something about "Strategic Homeland" before she became aware of the other three similarly attired men closing in on her from other directions. "I'm Agent Sitwell of SHIELD. We'd like to talk with you about the relationship between your family and the war criminal known as Loki."  
  
...Fuck her life.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Loki the Tourist: Portlandia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/608206) by [Paraprosdokia (ChangeableConsistency)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeableConsistency/pseuds/Paraprosdokia)




End file.
